Social Psychology

In this essay we will determine whether social psychology is scientific by answering two questions. Firstly, we will need to ask whether social psychology has been able to use the principles or methods used in science in the study of social psychological phenomenon. However, it would be unreasonable to classify social psychology as scientific simply because it uses these methods, for social psychology to be classified as a science we will need to look at the way in which these methods are used. Based on this, the second question we will be asking is whether the goals science are appropriate to the study of social psychological phenomena.

Malim et al.(1992) state that there are four goals to any science: to describe events as objectively as possible, to use such descriptions to predict future events and propose hypotheses, to gain greater knowledge through hypothesis testing and finally, to give us a greater understanding of the world around us through understanding cause and effec...